Just when things are going smoothly, you get reminded this is Florida. The high point of the day was getting towed. Yep, on the way home a friend setting up her Karaoke show waved me over. Would I mind the equipment for a few minutes while she ran home to get some disks she had forgotten? Thanks to the wrong time on my cell phone, I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time zone. The valet people had the tow truck there soon as my back was turned. When it is all said and done, I am out $375. Do not get towed in Florida. Of course, they won’t get away scot free but that isn’t the point. I had only driven the car due to the heavy morning rain storms, I had left my cell phone behind. I was going to go back and get it but who’d call me on a nothing Thursday? Well, there’s Marion, the lady about Eric’s truck and somebody from the 702 area code.
[Author's note 2015-11-05: for clarity, I was towed because I parked in a spot that became valet parking after 7:00PM, and I thought it was 6:00PM. Because once you retire, you don't have a lot of use to keep track of daylight savings time.]
I was lucky to recover my amplifier from the car but it turns out I had never paid the sales tax. I’d applied for the tax exemption and never followed up. Now they want an $85 fee. These type of laws and inefficiencies are here to stay because they were established when times were good. But now I understand why all the Florida tow yards are full of abandoned vehicles. It would be cheaper to just walk away.
[Author’s note: this vehicle has no monetary value. It was purchased for a single trip to California and written off end of that tax year. While it runs, it is now aged and in constant need of tinkering. It has been operating with a bad head gasket since Rhome, Texas, in August 2003.]
The fun part of the day was moving a doorway at the shoe place. Fun and dusty. The other shops in the mall have all said the same thing about the video cam security system. They like it but there is not enough money to get the thing installed. I figured that was a likely outcome, and that is why I have been calculating the option of renting the cameras. There are IP cameras which connect to and draw their power from an Internet connection. I just don’t yet know how to set them up.
Things weren’t perfect at the computer place either. I’ve warned people to only use the big driveway. Sure enough, somebody took out the architect’s mailbox in the narrow passage. He was kind of dumb to put it there anyway, the clearance is really bad. I know what you’re thinking, him being an architect, he should know better.
For the record, my cell phone is still displaying the wrong time. It all kind of makes you wonder. I never thought much of daylight savings time. So I probably think even less of those who caused this snafu. Either it is light outside or it is not, peeps. I’m also hearing about some more mass shootings, in Texas and Orlando. The government continues to claim all these people are crazy all in exactly the same way. I really want to believe that.
And the 702 area code turns out to be Las Vegas telemarketers. I would like to champion the national movement to encourage an annual tournament or olympic sport called telemarket sniping.
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